... Burlington Northern carries about 25 percent of the oil from the Bakken, said Krista York-Wooley, the railroad spokeswoman. The company can carry higher volumes from North Dakota or Alberta, she said.

Fifty musicians trekked to Farnham Glacier in the Kootenays Saturday to perform for the glacier itself and express their grief about the melting of glaciers with the aptly titled composition Requiem for a Glacier.... "It is farewell to a glacier, feeling sadness it will happen. We cannot stop it any more."

Saturday, July 27, 2013

Andrew Coyne's excellent column today explains how the Premiers, instead of attending to matters within their own jurisdiction, wasted their time (and our taxes) telling the federal government how to suck eggs:

It is possible to imagine a situation in which it would be useful for the premiers to meet, just as it ispossible to conceive of a reason why anyone should pay them the slightest attention[but just barely]. ...

[They could discuss taking action in many areas]:

... the hundreds of inter-provincial trade barriers that still disfigure the landscape

... to stop theirprofessional bodies from discriminating against those who have received their training elsewhere.

... to allow each other’s oil and hydroelectricity to cross their soil without being held to ransom.

... to put their budgets on the same system of accounts, so the public could have some idea of how much they were spending, relative to each other.

These would all justify the premiers meeting. ... there is nothing to prevent the premiers from doing any of these. Because, you see, they all have the inestimable advantage of being within the premiers’ jurisdiction. ... It isn’t just that they almost never agree to anything that is in their power to do ... They barely even talk about it.Instead, they talk about the feds: what Ottawa should do, how much money it should spend, and on what. On this, let it be said, they have no trouble agreeing. ... And, of all the things the premiers might think to suggest the federal government spend more on, what do you supposed tops their list? Why yes: themselves.... And when they have finished all this — when they are done writing Ottawa’s budget, and amending the Criminal Code, and drafting federal safety regulations, and demanding to be consulted on everything under the sun — the premiers use whatever time they have left to complain about federal interference.

The Premiers ought to be embarrassed. They've made a joke of their meetings. It's hardly much wonder why Harper ignores their invitations. He'd have to be nuts to attend.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

... are terrified they will become targets for hate mobs who have made death threats to the neighborhood vigilante.Mark and Dana Michelle Gerstle told friends they do not want to talk publicly about Zimmerman for fearthey will be accused of portraying him as a hero - and face a backlash from those who consider he got awaywith murder.

'They are very grateful to Zimmerman for what he did, but they do not want to get involved,' said a friend, who asked not to be named.

... The heroic rescue took place less than a mile from where Zimmerman shot 17 year old Martin in February 2012. ...

This insanity is thanks:

1) to vile leftists who favor mob "justice"
2) to a vile leftist media and race-baiters for misrepresenting the Zimmerman case, and
3) Barack Obama for stirring up racial resentment to satisfy his certifiably nuts, far-left base.

Assuming this story is accurate, good for Zimmerman - obviously he's a stand-up guy.

As for Mark and Dana Gerstle, I have mixed feelings. Given the leftist mob-justice mentality on display they're justifiably fearful for their family's safety. On the other hand, it would be better if they showed some courage. Maybe they'll step up soon.

At least half of Canada's vast boreal forest should be strictly protected from any kind of development and the rest should be carefully managed to preserve or restore its ecological integrity ...... The International Boreal Conservation Science Panel ... is sounding the alarm about Canada's 5.8-million square kilometre expanse of northern woods and wetlands ...... Report co-author Jeff Wells, science adviser to the U.S.-based Pew Charitable Trusts, said in a statement that because of the "mounting pressures on boreal regions of Canada," ...

This is more anti-development propaganda brought to you by the same eco-radical ENGO
bullies, thugs and shakedown artists who intimidated forest companies into
signing the Canadian Boreal Forest "Agreement". [Recall that one company, Resolute
Forest Products, located it's spine and sued for defamation.]

Neither forests nor forest wildlife are under any credibly realistic
"threat". Those most threatened (by eco-blackmailers) are people who make their
living in the forests. Eco-radicals brook no love for people.

Friday, July 19, 2013

... It is misleading, and just plain incorrect, to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally. It is further incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases.

... some activists, politicians, journalists, corporate and government agency representatives and even scientists who should know better have made claims that are unsupportable based on evidence and research.

... Such false claims could undermine the credibility of arguments for action on climate change, and to the extent that such false claims confuse those who make decisions related to extreme events, they could lead to poor decision making.
["could lead"? - has led to massively expensive blunders, like Ontario's (and nearly every other governments') "climate action" plan.]

... [David] Webb called Obama’s speech “disingenuous” and hit him for “placating his base and the people he needs to play to.” He criticized Obama for putting forth “the idea that the black community is one monolithic block, that most of us, black people, have been profiled. ...” ...“What the president has done is taken us backwards, not forwards,” Webb continued.

Monday, July 15, 2013

... The first cost to me in this is the cost to common sense. Making energy more expensive is going in exactly the wrong direction. Forcing people to pay more for energy makes no sense at all. I want to see energy get CHEAPER, not more expensive. I cannot put this too strongly:

Cheap energy is the salvation of the poor ... This means that anyone advocating policies that add to the price of energy isactively harming the poor ... slowing economic development in the parts of the planet that need it most.

... The second cost involves the concept of a “revenue neutral” tax. ... To understand the problem with this, let me try to disambiguate two concepts—“revenue neutral” taxes, and “sin” taxes. ... the more just and equitable the revenue-neutral sin tax is, the less it will affect behavior. In other words, in order for a revenue-neutral sin tax to be effective, it needs to be unfair …... The third cost is one of fairness, and this one has huge ramifications. Children I know all over the world have a clear sense of what’s not fair. Despite being revenue-neutral, which the BC plan demonstrably is, the plan is far from fair.... The fourth cost is the cost to the poor. I give them their own category because the poor are hit the hardest by rising energy costs.The fifth cost is the tax on the tax. Of course, the Government of Canada gets to charge the Goods and Service Tax (GST) ...The sixth cost is the overhead. You can’t run a complex program like a carbon-based energy tax without lots of paper pushers.The seventh cost is the pensions. Every person taking your tax money today and faithfully giving it back to you tomorrow in blessed revenue neutrality will be taking your tax money for thirty years after they retire and not giving back a dime.The eighth cost is the rent-seekers. These include folks like Sustainable Canada and other organizations for whom this is a grant-raising bonanza. ... They produce nothing useful, they are a dead weight on society, but they come right along with the tax, they mate for life.The ninth cost is the cost of tax avoidance/evasion. ...under any definition there are several costs in this arena of what might be called creative responses to the BC tax.The tenth cost is the hours people will spend filling out the paperwork.The eleventh cost is official hypocrisy. One surprising thing I found out in researching this is that the good burghers of BC have fields containing evil natural gas … and even more coal ...The twelfth cost is officials denying inconvenient reality. The so-called “fugitive emissions” (meaning leaks) of methane are a big issue with the radical left who would like to end fracking (and civilization as well, apparently).

... At about 2:45 Saturday afternoon the Livestream camera was handed to a young native man named Billy who says he comes from near the Conawapa Dam in Manitoba.... Billy explains his view on what indigenous people need to do to get attention for their cause:
“Us Indians have to do something really extreme to get the world’s attention, like forming a Taliban“... He then moves on to discuss his feelings on Jewish people and Israel ...

"... Martin was walking to his father’s house carrying a can of iced tea and a box of Skittles when he was gunned down by Zimmerman ..."

And on it goes! This column is a continuation of the media's disgracefully
biased coverage of the Zimmerman / Martin story.

The left/lib establishment (including, or especially, the media) had it's
collective mind made up from square one, before any evidence was presented -
a white man, George Zimmerman, was guilty of "gunning down" an innocent black
teenager "carrying ... a box of Skittles". They immediately and eagerly
stoked the racial angle. NBC news doctored the tape of a 911 call to make
Zimmerman sound like a racist (while he's anything but). Even the boneheaded
President Obama weighed in with his "if I had a son he'd look like Travon" idiocy.

And whose opinion is quoted in this piece (besides the race-baiting Obama)? The raving race baiter, Al
Sharpton, and the disgraced (for, inter alia, soliciting hookers on the public dime) former NY
Governor, Eliot Spitzer.

The trial is over, the jury has spoken. But there's not a word in the Sun
article of what was presented at trial and why the jury found Mr. Zimmerman not
guilty.

If this episode has stoked racial tension and racial division, the press and
the left/lib establishment it represents need only look in the mirror to see who
is largely to blame.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

... The jury ... deliberated 16 hours and 20 minutes over two days. The six female jurors entered the quiet, tense courtroom, several looking exhausted, their faces drawn and grim. After the verdict was read, each assented, one by one, and quietly, their agreement with the verdict.

... Saturday night when the verdict was read, Mr. Zimmerman, 29, smiled slightly. His wife, Shellie, and several of his friends wept, and his parents kissed and embraced. ...

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Jian Ghomeshi is arguably the coolest thing on CBC radio. However, Mr. Ghomeshi became uncharacteristically heated during his show, Q, on Monday morning over an issue that often raises righteous temperatures: climate.The text for Mr. Ghomeshi’s editorial, titled “Hot enough for ya?” was a new report from the World Meteorological Organization, WMO, which claimed that the decade to 2010 was one of “unprecedented high climate extremes.” ...... Mr. Ghomeshi is an important and influential figure, but one suspects that he did less research on this editorial than he does for most celebrity interviews. Next time he has Al Gore on the show, perhaps he can ask him about the British High Court judgment that found “An Inconvenient Truth” to be chockablock with scientific errors.

Researchers at the State University of New York at Albany analysed the satellite data of areas around large wind farms in Texas, where four of the world's largest farms are located, over the period 2003 to 2011.... The results, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, showed a warming trend of up to 0.72 degrees Celsius per decade in areas over the farms, compared with nearby regions without the farms.

This could be a big factor in finally getting AGW fanatics and other environmental freaks to abandon wind power.

In environmentalists' favourite jargon, wind power is, on every level, unsustainable!

Egypt’s military moved forcefully to seize power from President Mohamed Morsi on Wednesday, deploying tanks and troops in Cairo and other cities ...Ahramonline, the government’s official English-language Web site, said the military had informed Mr. Morsi that he was no longer head of state. There was no word on Mr. Morsi’s whereabouts ...

... Mr. Morsi’s senior foreign policy adviser [wrote]... "For the sake of Egypt and for historical accuracy, let’s call what is happening by its real name: Military coup." ...

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

A man and woman from B.C. have been arrested and charged in a terror plot targeting the B.C. legislature in Victoria on Canada Day. ... John Stewart Nuttall, in his late 30s, and Amanda Marie Korody, in her late 20s, both from Surrey, B.C., built explosive devices they planned to detonate at the provincial parliament buildings as part of an attack inspired by al-Qaida ideology.... A terrorism expert said it's likely the duo were converts to radical Islam and coached in the alleged plot. ...

Monday, July 1, 2013

... In hindsight, it was a case of identity theft, an act of historical vandalism. A quarter-century ago, 13 members of Parliament hastily -- some say indecently -- renamed the country's national birthday in a swift bit of legislative sleight-of-hand.

At 4 o'clock on Friday, July 9, 1982, the House of Commons was almost empty. The 13 parliamentarians taking up space in the 282-seat chamber ... The whole process took five minutes. ... a private member's bill from Hal Herbert, the Liberal MP from Vaudreuil ...

JR on:

DEFEND Freedom - Sign the petition

Donate

_________________Support our troops

On liberal fascists

"It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences." -- C. S. Lewis